July 30, 2013

WINCHESTER, Va. — ECFA announced this week the accreditation of International Mission Board (IMB), the Richmond, Va.-based global mission arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest evangelical denomination. In receiving accreditation from ECFA (www.ecfa.org), International Mission Board has submitted its financial records to the highest level of scrutiny and met all criteria to receive the ECFA seal of financial integrity. “With 1.7 billion people worldwide who have little or no access to the gospel, it is a privilege for ECFA to accredit IMB, one of the leading ministries making disciples of all people to fulfill the Great Commission,” said Dan Busby, ECFA president. Founded in 1845, IMB works with Southern Baptist churches to involve members of all ages and abilities in the task of taking the message of Christ to all peoples.

July 30, 2013

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is marking the 50th year of its founding with a Convention being held on Labor Day weekend in the nation’s capital at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. ISNA Conventions are largest Muslim gatherings in the United States and Canada, where you can meet Muslims and guests from other faith communities over the course of the weekend. ISNA was founded in 1963, the year that another unforgettable landmark event occurred in the nation’s capital – Dr. Martin Luther King’s declaration that “I Have a Dream.” Considering the occasion, the organizers are gearing toward staging a memorable 50th Convention. ISNA has invited a rich list of speakers, scholars, community leaders, and public servants. The likes of Dr. Tariq Ramadan, Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Zaid Shakir, Dr. Ingrid Mattson, Dr. Jamal Badawi, Hassan Al Qazwani and Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi will join Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and social activists such as Rami Nashashibi and NFL player Husain Abdullah. This year’s Convention theme “Envisioning a More Perfect Union: Building the Beloved Community” is drawn from the Quranic verse 59:13 that directs Muslims to build an inclusive community that surpasses worldly considerations, and instead seek service and gratitude to the Creator.

(RNS) Pope Francis said nothing that would indicate that there would be any change in the tenet that homosexuality is, as the Catholic catechism states, “objectively disordered.” But he appeared to push back against a policy that gay men cannot be ordained.

(RNS) Competing claims on the land are most intense in the Temple Mount-Haram al Sharif area and the stone-paved 1-square-kilometer area of Jerusalem’s Old City. But Jewish neighborhoods and construction in and around East Jerusalem have given rise to various creative solutions for resolving the riddle of how two people, and two faiths, can share the same place.

RIO DE JANEIRO (RNS) On March 15, Fabio Mateus packed a rucksack with a spare pair of sneakers, a raincoat, a hammock and $20 in his pocket, and started walking. Pilgrimages are a Brazilian tradition, built on a belief that to deepen religious experience a person must make sacrifices and suffer a degree of pain.

The take-away from Pope Francis’ trip to Brazil is that the efforts of John Paul II and Benedict XVI to reverse the course of the Second Vatican Council have come to an end. Francis’s papacy, it is now clear, will be about the Restoration of the Reform.

During Sightings’ annual “August Hiatus,” I (figuratively) load up my beach bag with books and other reading materials. I provide some suggestions at the end of this column should you be doing the same.